


they say that the world was built for two

by aceofdiamonds



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 03:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1329871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Someone's at the window, Pan," Lyra says curiously, getting out of bed and reaching the window before Pan can open his mouth. She's doing that smile, the one just for -- "What are you doing, Will?" </p><p>And there’s Will standing in her garden, a stone in his hand and then, when he sees it’s worked, a smile on his face. "Took you long enough."</p>
            </blockquote>





	they say that the world was built for two

**Author's Note:**

> i just want happy will and lyra and maybe this isn't realistic maybe this is me taking what i want and running with it but i want teenage lyra and will sneaking out and driving through summer nights

Tap. 

Tap. 

Tap. 

Pan hears it first, blinking awake. He sits up from his place at Lyra's side and cocks his head towards the window. 

Tap. 

He nudges at Lyra's arm to wake her up, butting his head against her shoulder until her eyes open partway. 

"What is it, Pan? It's --" she yawns widely, cranes her neck to find the alarm clock on her bedside table, squinting at the neon numbers. "-- half two." 

"Listen." 

She frowns but doesn't speak, tilting her head in the way people often do to improve their hearing. There's a louder tap this time, almost a thud, really. 

"Someone's at the window, Pan," Lyra says curiously, getting out of bed and reaching the window before Pan can open his mouth. She's doing that smile, the one just for -- "What are you doing, Will?" 

And there’s Will standing in her garden, a stone in his hand and then, when he sees it’s worked, a smile on his face. "Took you long enough."

She leans out the window a little, sure she can see the dimple in his cheek, laughing when Pan flicks his tail against her side in warning. "I'm a heavy sleeper. What are you doing here?" 

"You made me promise to tell you as soon as I got it fixed." Will's not really bothering to keep his voice down, his excitement obvious.

“Your car?” The car’s a mess, to put it politely. There’s a rattling under the bonnet when Will forces it above fifty, the gears stick between two and three, and the passenger door only shuts when it’s slammed with both hands on the handle. Three days ago it stopped in the middle of the road and refused to start again. Lyra loves it.

“Got it out the garage half an hour ago.” He throws his keys into the air, catching them on the end of his middle finger, the metal glinting like a jewel. “Going to test it out, see how it’s surviving. You coming?”

A list of cons forms quickly -- school tomorrow, it could break down again and get them stuck somewhere, it's half two in the morning -- but Lyra grins widely. "I'll be down in five."

“Dress nice!”

"Lyra! This isn't a good idea," Pan moans as she's tugging off her pyjama top and looking for something clean on the floor. A pair of jeans are pushed towards her by a disapproving Pan and then she grabs the hoodie folded over the desk chair, shoving her feet into her Converse by the door and chewing a stick of gum quickly as she creeps out of the room, shutting the door gently behind her. 

She’s standing in the garden two minutes later, her arms wrapped around herself to keep her warm, and Will’s leaning against the car, shaking his head.

“What?”

“Thought I told you to dress up.”

Lyra looks down at her jeans and trainers, the grass stain on her knee, then raises an eyebrow pointedly at Will’s t-shirt. “This is me dressed up.”

“You’re a mess.” Will yelps when Lyra aims a kick at his knee, a sharp burst of laughter hitting the air. “Come on, then. Get in.”

She pushes his shoulder for good measure on the way around the car then kicks an empty bottle out of the way so she can get her feet in. It takes three pulls to get the door to click shut. “Where’s that mixed CD I made you?” she demands once the engine’s been coaxed into starting and they’re making their way down the street. It’s quiet everywhere, the world asleep around them. It’s warm, too, warm enough to roll down the window and drive with one arm resting on the ledge. She rolls her own window down, tipping her head to the side. “You haven’t lost it, have you?”

“Relax.” Will bats her hand out of the way when she tries to search between his seat and the centre console. “It’s in the player, idiot.”

“Oh. Do you listen to it a lot?” She’s never heard him play it and she’s in this car more or less every day, when it’s working. She made it for him for their six month anniversary because he thought she would forget or blow it off and proving Will Parry wrong is a constant aim of her’s.  

“Only in secret. I can’t have you thinking I like it or something,” he says, turning and winking at her, making her laugh loudly. He hits play and sure enough there’s the Vampire Weekend song she picked out all those months ago, the one that makes her want to dance around and think of the way Will’s eyes sparkle when he’s thinking of something that makes him happy. “I like that there’s four Haim songs in a row.”

“I think I put them on there more for my benefit than yours.” She turns it up until she can feel the drums under her skin then leans back and props her feet on the dashboard. “A selfish move, I know.” She pauses, watches the buildings turn into fields, ghosts in the half-light. “Will, where are we going?”

“Just up here. Two minutes.” He puts his foot on the accelerator, moves up to the next gear, and Lyra turns her attention to the way the muscles in his arm move, strong and lean. She places her hand on top of Will’s on the gear shaft, her finger brushing the stumps of his pinkie and ring finger. She remembers the day it happened as though it was yesterday, can still smell the blood that had poured out of the cuts for what seemed like hours after the knife had made its mark. She hasn’t touched a kitchen knife since, she wonders if Will has, she doesn’t think he would avoid them forever, would call that stupid and unnecessary, but she can see his face when it had slipped, pale and shaky and scared.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?”

He knows what she’s talking about, of course, she asks the same question at least once a month. She holds herself responsible in some twisted way, it had been her idea to make cookies after all, she had been the one to hand him the knife, knowing it was far too big for such a task of chopping up a bar of chocolate.

“Not at all,” he says, and maybe he’s saying that to placate her but he’s always so honest, sometimes painfully so, so she doesn’t think he’s lying. “Look, Lyra.” He jerks his head to the back seat where Pan and Kirjava are wrapped around each other looking like they’ll never let go. It’s funny, Pan says from time to time that Lyra and Will are so co-dependant on one another, that it wouldn’t do any harm to make other friends, and then the two daemons act like they’ve been apart for months when they saw each other a few hours before. Pan gets very aloof and distant when Lyra teases him about this. “Think we should leave them in the car?”

“So we’re getting out at some point?” She says this as Will turns off the main road and follows a winding track down to a field. "We're not driving to the end of the world?"

"My mum thinks I make up how dramatic you are.”

“Your mum loves me,” Lyra agrees, leaning over to press her finger to the dimple at Will’s cheek. “Smile for me.” He does as he’s told, baring his teeth and making Lyra snort, her finger slipping to the corner of his mouth. “Pretty boy.”

He smiles properly then, taking the compliment and running with it. She feels her mouth stretch to match then she coughs and hits skip, the poppy intro making them both jump. “I forgot I put One Direction on here.”

“This is my favourite of the whole mix,” Will says, clicking his indicator to turn into a field even though there’s been literally one other car since they left Lyra’s and none on this stretch of road. “I wish you’d included even more.”

“The lyrics spoke to me,” she agrees, pushing at the door with her shoulder until it gives in and falls open. “You light up my world like nobody else.”

“When we met I never knew you would be so sarcastic.” Pan and Kirjava stay in the car, whispering about whatever it is they whisper about that always leaves Will and Lyra wondering if they’re conspiring against them, an uprising anyday soon.

“When we met I was four.”

“And look where we are now.” Will walks backwards in front of her, his arms spread wide. He leads her under a huge tree, folding his hoodie to make a sort of pillow, and then lying down, Lyra following suit.

They lie in silence for a while, the sky stretching out above them.

"I knew you were secretly romantic." 

A scoff. "There's not many places to go around here. I'll take you somewhere better when we have all the time in the world." 

"Here's just fine." Lyra sighs, stretching out her legs and reaching out to tangle her fingers with Will's. "There's something about stars. They're no bigger than the end of my finger but they make me feel so small." 

"My mum taught me the constellations when I was younger. Look," he lifts his other hand and connects up a line in the sky. "there's the Big Dipper." 

“What else did your mum teach you?”

“How to get girls.” Lyra has her eyes shut but she feels the press of his body along her side when he leans up onto one elbow, hears the grin in his voice.

She hums, feigning disbelief. “Didn’t she tell you how to get boys?”

“She did,” Will agrees. His fingers are light on her neck, tripping across to her shoulder, her chin, her cheek. She tilts her head into his touch. “I’d rather not pass on her advice. I’m afraid you’ll use it get away from me.”

Lyra opens an eye. Will’s staring at her with that smile he does sometimes, the one that makes her warm all over. “Oh, I wouldn’t be afraid of that.”

“No? And why’s that?” A kiss, quick.

“Pan would never forgive me.” She likes the way her hand fits the curve of his cheek, how the paleness of her skin contrasts with his, the tiniest brush of stubble under her thumb.

“We mustn’t upset Pan,” Will murmurs then allows his head to be pulled down, his mouth responding to Lyra’s touch, his lips soft.

Lyra sighs against his lips, nudging her leg in between Will’s. She smiles when Will deepens the kiss and pulls him closer, her head spinning with the familiarity and excitement. This is where she’s happiest, she thinks, as if she had any comparison at all. She lies back on the grass, Will settling over her, a comfortable weight, and pulls them both to the edge.

It feels magical out here, just them, their daemons back in the car a few metres away. Lyra holds on tight and breathes with Will as they move. And after, when they’re grinning at what they’ve just done, out here in the open, under the cover of the stars, Lyra feels a little like she’s floating, Will her anchor beside her.

It’s quiet now, their breathing slowing back down, and then -- "Hey, have you, uh, have you done the maths homework for tomorrow?"

“I love the way you talk to me,” she says through a breath, pretending to swoon against his chest. It’s still sort of warm, it helps that Will feels like a furnace beside her. She wonders what time it is now, when the sun make an appearance. It feels like time moves differently here. “Yeah, why?”

“I’m stuck on number six. My working doesn’t match up.”

She feels his fingers in her hair, leans into them. “I’ll swap you that for a check over my History essay.”

The fingers move down to her cheek, her chin, tilting her face up to him. He kisses her. “Deal.”

“You know.” Lyra shifts until she’s mostly on top of Will, their legs tangled and their bodies pressed together. She ducks down to kiss him again, pulling away too quick and making him groan, his hands fitting at her hips. “We could stay here all day.”

Will groans again, his head dropping back onto the grass. She cards a hand through his hair, tugging gently on the strand above his ear. “Don’t say that. I have a test and homework and --”

“Take the test the next day. It’s almost summer, Will. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Lying on top of me. In fact, I think it’s crushing me.” He smiling, his lips red from before. Lyra reads about girls falling in love and everyone saying they’re too young, it can’t be real, but this feels like the most important thing in the world, how can it be anything but true. She laughs, the sound shattering the hush that has settled in the air around them, shaking her head when Will raises an eyebrow in question. He sighs, the hands on her waist tighten, and that’s it, she’s won. “We don’t have any food.”

“We’ll think of something,” she promises then leans down and slots their mouths together, her heart in her throat at how perfect this feels. “Just trust me.”

“You know I always do.”

“And have I let you down before?”

“I suppose you haven’t.”

 

 


End file.
